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Canfield presents mystery drama
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Cast members react to the apparent death of a wedding guest during a dress rehearsal of “Bruce and Tina’s Wedding” Tuesday. The play is the first interactive murder mystery performed at Canfield High School.
The first performance of “Bruce and Tina’s Wedding” begins at 7 tonight at Canfield High School’s cafeteria. A performance by the sophomore and junior class is 7 p.m. Friday and the senior cast will perform again at 7 p.m. Saturday.
In lieu of “wedding gifts,” guests are asked to bring a canned good to donate to Canfield High School’s holiday drive.
For reservations, visit www.bruceandtinaswedding.com or call 330-533-1695. Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for students and senior citizens. The tickets include a meal and the show.
By Kristine Gill
CANFIELD
Anything could happen during Canfield High School’s fall drama production this weekend.
“I’m not nervous now,” said senior and drama club president Bella Gullia, 17. “The night of, I probably will be.”
Students are participating in their first mystery dinner theater, which will rely heavily on improvisation and interaction with audience members.
The play, “Bruce and Tina’s Wedding,” centers on a murder at a wedding, which adds to the mayhem already created by the attendance of several awkward guests, including former significant others of both the bride and groom.
“Basically everything that can go wrong, does go wrong,” said senior Gia Velasquez, 18, who plays the bride, Tina.
The audience will work out clues to solve the murder and will act as a part of the cast in some situations.
Gullia plays the mother of the groom and thinks she’ll be able to improvise with audience members if she can overcome the jitters.
“You have to know your stuff,” Gullia said. “I should know Sylvia so much that I am her.”
Kandace Cleland has worked with the Canfield drama team for the past 15 years as the artistic director and recognizes the risk in taking on a production with so much improvisation and room for the unexpected.
“Our students are learning how to improvise without giving the ending away,” she said.
Akron resident Eileen Moushey of Mysteries by Moushey Inc. wrote the play originally titled “The Wedding from Hell.” Moushey allowed Cleland to change the title to a more age-appropriate one and increase the cast size to accommodate eager, young thespians.
Though the play calls for a core group of eight principal actors, Cleland tweaked the lineup with Moushey’s permission, doubling the wedding party and rounding out to 50 roles.
Moushey said that though the plot and solution must remain the same in each of her productions, she loves to see what different groups come up with in their interpretations and through the addition of local cultural references.
“I tell everybody to make it their own,” she said, adding that more than 1,200 groups around the world have performed some of her works, many of them high-school drama clubs.
She said the genre is popular with students that age and can be easier than a typical play format in some ways.
“In one sense it’s easier if you have someone who can do improv,” she said. “As far as other things, there’s not as much memorization. It’s a lot more organic and a lot more fluid. It’s much easier as far as rehearsal time goes to get the lines down quickly ... Once you develop characters and relationships, then it becomes a whole lot easier.”